We could see the black shape of the wolf through the rare January fog. Overnight, the fog had frozen and painted the landscape with hoarfrost. The wolf watched us calmly as Kaley and Lona started a fire. I took a break from the ice auger and returned the wolf’s stare.

“Hmmm…I wonder what that wolf is up to?”

“Oh Daddy, that’s probably just Wolfy….Charlie’s wolf…maybe he wants to play with Rainy.”

The “Charlie” my daughter was referring to is a mythical Ojibwe hero from my own childhood. He traveled the wilderness alone helping both people and animals alike. My dad told me so many stories about him that he undoubtedly shaped a large part of my backwoods ethics. I doubt this was my dad’s intention when he pulled Charlie from his bag of bedtime tricks, but fortunately for all of us, Charlie was a good man.

As I stare through the icy fog at the black wolf, I am struck by how comfortable my daughter is with all of this. She is busy imitating her mom and adding sticks to the fire. She is standing on a frozen lake in a remote wilderness with a wolf watching her from less than one hundred yards away.

It occurs to me, now, that her mom and I are largely responsible for all this. What we do with our time and the traditions we keep reflect our values and ground us in our perceived normalness. The stories told to me by my dad are now stories being told by me to my own daughter. This tradition makes me proud yet slightly worried. Hopefully, looking up to Charlie, the wild woodsman of the north, doesn’t scar her too deeply at some point in her life. Realistically though, I doubt that Charlie’s tanned hides will hold a candle to the inevitable Disney princess-dressed line up to come.

My stiffening hands work sluggishly at rigging our fishing lines as my eye catches something distant. The wolf is now trotting across the narrows and towards the distant shore. Lona is following her mom onto the island for roasting sticks as Rainy drops her tennis ball into my ice hole. Business as usual. Rainy’s ears suddenly perk towards the east as a low, mournful howl drifts down from the jackpine ridge. “Don’t worry Rainy”, I whisper with a smile, “that’s just ‘Wolfy’ saying goodbye.”

The next morning at the cabin, we are mixing up sourdough pancakes. Sourdough used to be a staple amongst northwoods types and has always been a Sunday morning tradition in my family. The original sourdough starter of my family’s came from a lady who lived on Hoist Bay of Basswood Lake. It has been alive for longer than I have and has undoubtedly made many thousands of pancakes.

“Oh Daddy, Oh Daddy, don’t forget to make some for Ralph!”

“I won’t.” I reply with a smile. Ralph is a bird….a Canadian Jay who visits Wilderness Bay during the lean fall and winter months. Ralph loves sourdoughs and will likely eat them right from your hand. Of course, he will also eat groceries from a bag or your lunch from a picnic table, but that’s alright. Right now, I am just happy that Ralph is here at the cabin. And I am proud that our daughters’ reality has such star players as Ralph and traditions such as sourdough Sundays.

To all of you who have made visiting Wilderness Bay a part of your family tradition, thank you. We wouldn’t exist without you.

As the last leaves are falling, we’d like to thank all of our guests for another great season.

This year we picked more blueberries, ate more fish, and swam more in the deep blue waters of Snowbank. It was a truly beautiful summer!

We are now working to confirm reservations for 2016. If you haven’t done so, please send in your deposits before October 1st. This will help us know what cabins may be available for those waiting.

For next year we will be raising our rates $100.00 per cabin, but if you pay with cash or check, we will give you a discount of $50.00. We would also like to mention that we will have a new deluxe Lund Fury Boat for rent with a 25h.p. automatic motor, live well, depth finder, trolling motor and pedestal seats. If you think you might be interested, let us know.

There are no boats or canoes on the lake but there is an underlying sense of urgency amongst all the creatures dwelling here. Only a small and precious number of days remain until the “freeze-up”. So the muskrats and beavers gather feverishly while the deer begin to migrate towards town. Thousands of ciscoes storm the reef off the point cabin in a mating frenzy. I can hear them tonight as I walk down to the sauna. They are jumping like crazy which sounds like a gang of children throwing rocks into the lake.

Looking across the bay towards the portage, I see Orion, the winter-maker rising.

I feel grateful for things like these.

These are things that happen every year at the same time despite what our calendars say. For some reason, this comforts me.

I also feel grateful for all of our guests who come to Wilderness Bay year after year and share their summer vacations with us.

Each spring we wait- watching the weather patterns and the nearby rivers for clues- hoping that the ice will break before the guests arrive.

Last year was a ‘late ice’ year. The winter was long and spring was slow to arrive. This year, winter has been harsh; we are still anticipating the arrival of spring (4+ inches of snow yesterday).

So we will wait.

The photos included show decades of such waiting, some years more patiently than others.

In the story below, Jay reflects on his experience traveling on spring ice.

Travel on Ice

Jay Hotaling

“What we need to do is go grab one of those cedar snags over there.”

My dad was finishing a knot on our lifeline rope and nodding his head towards a fallen tree.

Knowing it was my job to retrieve the branch, I stumbled along the rocky shoreline and cursed missing Saturday morning cartoons for such insanity. It was a clear, crisp April morning and the sun was just peeking over the pines of Burnt Island. My dad and I were preparing to journey across the thin and rotting ice of Snowbank Lake.

As usual, we would drag a canoe behind us as a twisted sort of insurance policy. I never had the nerve to ask my dad why we did this ritual every fall and spring or why he didn’t take one of his other children with him. It was just an accepted, albeit silently questioned, way of life.

Needless to say, these risky travels were always justified with some “time-sensitive project”. As I grew into my teens, I began to suspect that these urgent projects were something my dad conjured up to combat my mom’s plea that crossing thin ice was foolish and unnecessary.

The canoe skidded easily across the early morning ice. The rhythmic sound calmed my nerves as I stared down at the black, pocketed ice.

“Hold on to those gunnels now, we’re coming up to a reef here.” Walking out in front of the canoe, my dad studied the colors and textures of the ever changing ice.

“Dad?”

“What?”

“Isn’t this black ice really dangerous ?”

“No, it’s when it changes back to white that you have to start worrying.”

“Yes, but see how it’s raised up above the ice around it? It’s been tramped and the ice under it is thicker.”

“Why?”

“Less insulation and more compaction.”

“Oh.” I decided just to be quiet and follow for a while.

As we neared the bay I got more curious about our mission.

“Dad? Why are we spreading gravel around the docks?”

“We’re gonna put gravel around the docks so the sun beats down and frees them from the ice. Otherwise, when the ice breaks free from the shore, it will lift and the docks will lift with it. It probably won’t lift them much, but they never go down to the same place they were before. Then we have to go around and level them. It’s a cold, wet job in thirty five degree water. It’s called preventative maintenance.”

“So, dad….one more quick question….why do we have this stupid pole with us?”

“Well, a pole like that saved my life once. If you hit a patch of ‘honeycomb’ ice where water has eaten tiny holes in the ice, your feet will punch right through, but if you use the pole and distribute your weight, you’ll have a better chance of climbing out of the hole.”

Neither my dad nor I fell into any holes that day, but there were other times that we got to use our insurance policies. Fortunately, these times were close to shore and not life-threatening.

Today, I miss traveling the ice with my Dad. I know it was something he enjoyed; it was a challenge to him. Not to mention that the destination was probably the closest thing to heaven on this side of the cloud line. But perhaps even more than that, somewhere in those journeys was a lost link to times gone by.

A time when people traveled these lakes and rivers like roads. A simpler time when people weren’t dependent on satellites and screens to tell them what way to turn. A time when people understood just how linked their existence was to the land and water that surrounded them.

The canoe skids to a halt as I survey a patch of open water in the narrows leading to Pickerel Bay. I’m alone today, and yet my dad is always with me in a way.

I smile and wonder just how many times he fell through learning all this stuff. I step forward….moving backward on long forgotten paths.

The Wilderness Bay Lodge sauna was built in 1971 by Lee (Hotaling) and Finnish carpenter Bob Matson. It was built in the style of the more modern Finnish saunas using continuous fire to heat the stones that are placed directly over the firebox.

In the winter of 1991, the WB sauna was moved to its current location. Using large poplar trees as skids, the sauna was shifted from just below Cabin Four to where it sits now. An addition was added to the roof and new woodsheds were built out back.

In 2013, Jay and John (Hotaling) made further improvements, the most noteworthy being the new cedar benches.

Sitting for the first time on the new benches, soaking in the scent of cedar, appreciating the lack of backside burning nails, memories filled my mind. Memories of childhood and of family and friends. I think back to the summers it took to work our way up to the coveted top bench. Holding out as long as we could, until we decided it was time to push our way through the wooden doors, tear down that gravel path to the shore, and gasp as we courageously plunged into the crisp lake. Emerging with bodies steaming, we would float. Looking up at a sky bursting with stars, listening to the loons yodel in the distance, our hearts racing with joy.

For so many people, the sauna is a spiritual place, a place of cleansing, of ritual, of rejuvenation. If you have ever taken a sauna at Wilderness Bay, I hope that your experience was one of renewal. If you have not yet been, I hope that one day you find your way to the sauna at Wilderness Bay.